RAVPower – something new from an old favourite

I’ve been using RAVPower battery packs for years and recently taken kindly to their new high power PD (60w and 65w) phone chargers, so my excitement at receiving the new PD Pioneer 20000maH 65E 2-port Power House should come as no surprise.

That didn’t stop me getting excited when it turned up – and days hours later I’m STILL excited – just LOOK at this monster.

The model (RP-PB054) Power House I received has a UK power output socket and has USB-C input and output – taking advantage of PD power delivery to quickly charge the internal battery. It also has a USB 3 connector and comes with a universal mains adaptor, tiny “thank you” note with warranty info (12 months) with US, DE and Japan phone numbers and a help email address. The user guide has 5 pages of English as well as German, French, Spanish and italian help.

So, I started thinking about a night in a tent – high speed charging 2 phones (one on USB-A, the other on USB-C) and enough 220v power to run a substancial LED lamp all night or even for two nights. Give me time and I’ll think of all sorts of other uses. Of course you can carry around a solar panel for all of this – but as I’m currently UK Northeast bound – forget that – there’s little chance of 2 consecutive days of decent sunshine.

The RP-PB054 Power House also comes with a decent carry-case and the whole lot looks like it will be shower-proof..

The USB-A connector is an output (and I can verify offers Quick-Charge as I just charged my Pocophone on it), while USB-C is both in and out.

Ok, I know, a MESS – I have so much to test right now I’ve given up trying to make my worktops presentable. The IMPORTANT thing in this photo is: you are looking at the RavPower Power House being charged via it’s USB-C connection while simultaneously powering my Raspberry Pi 4 via the USB-A output – and I can confirm that my Pi 4 was and is showing NO voltage drops (Pis are very sensitive to this) – the power from startup (I started charging AFTER connecting the Pi) shows perfect voltage values – never dropping below 5.1v – a dream Raspberry Pi supply – perhaps a little expensive to use for the Pi alone – but given that it can do other jobs at the same time…

In a later test I continued to power my Raspberry Pi 4 while charging my near-dead Pocophone F1 simultaneously. Finally while using my (discussed elsewhere) new Riden TC66C to monitor charge rate, I charged the Power Houseouse through the USB-C connector while still running the Pi4. Charge rate from a RAVPower PD Pioneer 65w charger was 15v at 1.9A.

There is a power button and 5 charge-level LEDs. If using the Power House to charge something else (like a phone or tablet) – when your device is fully charged, the AC output will turn off. I had thoughts of using the unit to power my tiny travel fridge on the beach this summer, but thinking about it, I’m guessing the AC power-out shut off will only happen if there is no load – based on what I’ve seen so far I’m banking on it doing the job just nicely though at this rate it might end up having a permanent job in my Spanish office.

The unit will protect itself from excessive discharge – more than can be said of some power invertors I’ve seen elsewhere.

Chargers – not the most exciting subject but we need them constantly – may as well have the best…

14 thoughts on “RAVPower – something new from an old favourite”

a beast, indeed, seems very well done 🙂
but for led lamps or what else which is already low voltage, isn’t it better to just use low voltage, and not the “double inverted” 220v? As “The 8-bit Guy” did here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ur-D37-juo

Yes, the unit has USB C and USB A outputs as well, so charge phones (Quickcharge) with that – run mains LED lighting with mains output up to 100w peak – realistically a couple of 9w LED bulbs should last for hours.

That’s why I need subscribers! I never thought of using it as a UPS. Good one Bob. YES, of course – UPS for maybe a Raspberry Pi – plugged into the mains outlet – the Pi4 uses, what? 15w max, so the Ravpower would keep it going for several hours… of course we could also use the USB outputs – depending on the actual output voltage and how the PI handles a PD device… that in itself is a conversation.

Ok, I’ve taken my life into my hands (or rather, that of my new Pi4). Done – plugged the Pi4 into the Ravpower USB C output – must be 5.1v minimum – no errors – my Pi 4 power status indicator is showing 0x0 – I’ll leave it there for a while to see what happens… meanwhile, charging my phone – quick-charge on the USB A output – no drops showing.I love it already. I’ll add this to the blog. Antonio and I are tring simultaneous charge and discharge – working – I’ll update the blog. Thanks for starting this off.

now all you need is some indicator that the ravpower is going below a certain charge, to just send a signal to the pi and have it do a proper shutdown… given the rpi has no analog pins, maybe an LDR put on the “last-1” led, and a comparator to have it just send out a digital signal? For example, this little module has both analog and digital out signals, and a little trimmer to set threshold…https://www.instructables.com/id/LDR-Sensor-Module-Users-Manual-V10/

Alternatively, with some coding one could add either a Raspi analog board or an I2C analog breakout board and monitor current.
Another thought, is it possible to get an output from a USB current monitor, Ruiden maybe, into NR and effect a controlled Raspi shutdown that way.
I think the RAVpower devices shut down automatically when the output voltage get too low anyway. So, a voltage monitor to shutdown the Pi may be another option.
Good ideas, updates and suggestions come so thick and fast on this blog I can’t keep up with them.
I am building my new 3D printer at the moment so that’s another learning curve to climb.

if the ravpower is on battery, you can’t monitor too much… and i don’t want to monitor its output, either: i want something that monitors the ravpower residual charge and properly shuts down the rpi, preventing sd corruption on power loss… the output voltage is stabilized, it does not drop unless it does all of the sudden… you should monitor the internal cells directly, but this means cracking it open up… my way, monitoring the last -1 led, is non intrusive, and leaves you the last “led” of energy to properly do what an ups does: power AND shut down systems on low charge 🙂
i think it’s best to use a wemos at this point, which sends out an mqtt message to the rpi, without even messing around with rpi gpios 🙂

that’s an other point, my was to just prevent sd corruption by proper shutdown 🙂
in the end i think a proper ups costs less and most have usb or eth cables to be managed by something like NUT on linux 🙂

idea! Power you pi through one of those blue Sinilink usb dongles, and you’re good to go: when power is back, the Sinilink can just power toggle the pi… well, now you have an other problem: what if the powerbank goes completely flat…

So, the same issue applies with standard UPS – UI’ev had several, the difference being, if THIS unit goes completely flat, then it will recover. UPS using lead-acid batteries, shen faced with a prolonged shutdown, sometimes need a battery replacement – I’ve had that. At least here we’re almost definitely talking Lithium batteries – I’d bet my hat on it, in fact. So, a Wemos with light sensor, power goes down the WEMOS goes down, have the Wemos turn the output off if the second last LED goes off – and turns the output back on when the same LED is on (you’d need something to ignore the flashing stage so you get some hysteresis).

I missed Antonio’s point about the LED on the RAV, however, bouncing ideas around usually gets to a workable solution.
Interesting comment about Lead acid batteries. I am aware of someone who has had a car in storage and because of C-19 restrictions couldn’t get to it to give it a periodic run. The battery is now dead. He has got his fingers crossed the deep cycle battery on his camper is OK.

Absolutely, deep discharge will be ok, normal wet lead-acid car batteries do NOT recover well from going flat – they may seem to recover, even reaching full voltage but there is a big difference between that and capacity.

In 2 years both of our cars went down, one due to sitting all winter with the battery connected (nothing left on) – the other due to a loose alternator connection after a service. I ended up replacing both batteries – others thought it was the alternator in one case but a friend backed me up on my battery theory. Both original (not that old) batteries appeared to recover (using a pulsed charger), they are sitting in my office now, having been left fully charged a month ago, one is at 12.2v, the other 11.5v. I HATE to bin batteries – but one of them is never going to recover.

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